The Image staff muses on the culture of keeping up appearances

Milan Fashion Week: Dsquared serves up pure hockey camp

January 21, 2010 | 10:00
am

I'll admit it, at the Dsquared show on the final day of Milan Fashion Week, when the leather-clad fellow with the black feathered plumage appeared at the top of the runway and people started cheering madly, my first thought was that it was second-place "American Idol" contestant Adam Lambert in the aftermath of a severe crash diet.

I was distracted, after all, by the whole theme: "The Hockey Horror Dsquared Show," complete with crossed hockey sticks at the foot of a faux ice rink runway, and music from the cult '70s flick "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Sure, twin designers Dan and Dean Caten are Canadian and we all know how the Canadians love hockey. And the movie that gave us Tim Curry in the role of a "sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania" has never stopped playing in theaters in the 35 years since it was released, so it's clearly got legs. But the respective fan bases outside of the Caten clan are so far apart the Venn diagram would look like the wheels of a school bus.

Afterward, I found out the leather-wearing guy was Bill Kaulitz, the lead singer of the German band Tokio Hotel. Fashion industry trade paper WWD reported on Tuesday that Dsquared is custom-making some outfits for him for a coming tour (as well as dressing the rest of the group in off-the-rack Dsquared).

Which made Kaulitz's androgynous presence on the catwalk just about the only thing that made sense. The collection included generously cut shirts that resembled drop-shouldered hockey jerseys. Some had patent leather appliqued numbers and maple leaves; others a ghoulish hockey goalie mask in black and white, with rivulets of crimson blood dripping from its neck.

Many of the models had been styled to look as though they'd been in a
fight, sporting split lips and bloodied knuckles.

One sleeveless white
button-front shirt had a blood splatter design on the collar,
but it was hard to tell whether it was part of the show's styling or whether simulating a neck wound was a trompe l'oeil embellishment intended for
wider production. (I can see how such a look might actually come in
handy when you're trying to cut out of work early on a Friday.)

But for the most part, there was nothing new under the sun: The collection was hockey motif and glitter window dressing ladled over standard-issue Dsquared clothes.

Photos: Top, Tokio Hotel's lead singer, Bill Kaulitz, center, is flanked by two looks from the Dsquared fall-winter 2010 runway show in Milan on Jan. 19. Bottom, a model hits the catwalk wearing a sleeveless, button-front shirt with a bloody collar design. Credit: Peter Stigter / For The Times